OKC Fire Crews Battle Two Alarm Commercial Fire

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OKLAHOMA CITY — Fire crews spent several hours Sunday evening battling a two alarm commercial fire. They were called to Pro Tools in the 3900 block of N.W. 10th around 5:30 pm.

When firefighters arrived on scene, heavy black smoke was pouring out of the machine shop and flames were shooting through the roof.

“It’s a large amount of fire in the very front of the store. We can’t get access to it from the back side. We’re hitting it with master streams right now,” said Oklahoma City Fire Deputy Chief, Marc Woodard.

Harold Jenks says he’s owned the business since 1969.

“Well I got tools I make and sell,” he said.

“Been here since 1969, a build up of oil and grease over that time, all of the structured members are just permeated with that, and so you’ve got a heavy, heavy fire load,” said Oklahoma City Fire Battalion Chief, Mike Kelley.

Fire crews initially entered Pro Tools to fight the fire from the inside, but had to pull out for safety reasons.

“We had to pull our crews out due to the large amount of fire and the roof started sagging with the air conditioning units on top,” said Woodard.

Jenks says he build cylinder heads and engine blocks and makes tools out of his business.

He says the building was insured, but not the contents.

“Clean up the mess, I don’t know … I don’t know what else I’ll do,” said Jenks.

Firefighters blocked off a large section of N.W. 10th while they stretched hoses to fight the blaze.

They managed to protect the light bulb store and bar on either side of the machine shop and some dangerous items inside the shop itself.

“He’s got some acetylene tanks in the back of the shop. He also had some ammunition. He told me he had like 500 rounds of ammunition. And as far as we can tell at this point, the fire never involved the acetylene tanks or the ammunition. We were able to protect those in place,” said Kelley.

Firefighters say it appears the fire started in the attic space of the machine shop, but they’re not sure exactly what caused the fire.